Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 2 of 2]
With his Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader

By Benjamin Franklin

Page 54

of hail, and even a dark cloud damps the very stoutest heart.

"I have lived in the first ages, and conversed with insects of a largersize and stronger make, and, I must add, of greater virtue than any canboast of in the present generation. I must conjure you to give yetfurther credit to my latest words, when I assure you that yonder sun,which now appears westward, beyond the water, and seems not to be fardistant from the earth, in my remembrance stood in the middle of thesky, and shot his beams directly down upon us. The world was much moreenlightened in those ages, and the air much warmer. Think it not dotagein me if I affirm that glorious being moves: I saw his first setting outin the east, and I began my race of life near the time when he began hisimmense career. He has for several ages advanced along the sky with vastheat and unparalleled brightness; but now, by his declination and asensible decay, more especially of late, in his vigour, I foresee thatall nature must fall in a little time, and that the creation will lieburied in darkness in less than a century of minutes.

"Alas! my friends, how did I once flatter myself with the hopes ofabiding here forever! how magnificent are the cells which I hollowed outfor myself! what confidence did I repose in the firmness and spring ofmy joints, and in the strength of my pinions! _But I have lived longenough to nature, and even to glory._ Neither will any of you, whom Ileave behind, have equal satisfaction in life, in the dark declining agewhich I see is already begun."

Thus far this agreeable unknown writer--too agreeable, we may hope, toremain always concealed. The fine allusion to the character of _JuliusCaesar_, whose words he has put into the mouth of this illustrious son of_Hypanis_, is perfectly just and beautiful, and aptly points out themoral of this inimitable piece, the design of which would have beenquite perverted, had a virtuous character, a _Cato_ or a _Cicero_, beenmade choice of to have been turned into ridicule. Had this _life of aday_ been represented as employed in the exercise of virtue, it wouldhave an equal dignity with a life of any limited duration, and,according to the exalted sentiments of Tully, would have been preferableto an immortality filled with all the pleasures of sense, if void ofthose of a higher kind: but

"[i-226] Having missed Franklin in Paris
(1767), De Nemours had sent Franklin "un recueil des principaux traites
economiques du Docteur Quesnay" and his own _Physiocratie_ (1768), which
cast him in the role "of a propagandist of Physiocratie
doctrines.

This did not prevent him
from becoming a symbol of liberty by his mere presence in the land,
stimulating patriots to examine the foundations of the tyrannical
authority which they saw or imagined enslaving them.

But,
as most People delight in Censure when they themselves are not the
Objects of it, if any are offended at my publickly exposing their
private Vices, I promise they shall have the Satisfaction, in a very
little Time, of seeing their good Friends and Neighbours in the same
Circumstances.

us to know us, and feel for us, cannot take from us our
_Habeas Corpus_ right, or our right of trial _by a jury of our
neighbours_; they cannot deprive us of the exercise of our religion,
alter our ecclesiastical constitution, and compel us to be Papists, if
they please, or Mahometans.

It is to this day usual at the _levees_ of princes, to have persons
assembled who are enemies to each other, who seek to obtain favor by
whispering calumny and detraction, and thereby ruining those that
distinguish themselves by their virtue and merit.

has wasted the lives of at least an equal number of
his own soldiers and sailors: many of whom have been _forced_
into this odious service, and _dragged_ from their families
and friends, by the outrageous violence of his illegal
press-gangs.